


Coals

by WDW



Series: always gold [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Cardboard Cutout of Ford Pines Because He's Still In The Portal Oops, Gen, Monster Stan PInes, Now Replaced By Real Life And Very Large Ford Pines, Ray Of Sunlight Mabel Pines Who Does Not Appear Yet Because I Love My Stan and Dipper Bonding, Sweaty Preteen Dipper Pines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26261254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WDW/pseuds/WDW
Summary: The Mystery Shack smells like old wood and new smoke.(Ft. Stan and Dipper bonding, mysteries, and a whole lot of burning things. Also, monster Stan because I'm me.)
Relationships: Dipper Pines & Stan Pines
Series: always gold [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934500
Comments: 33
Kudos: 120





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> monster stan requested by ayo (@ancientouroboros)

_“I should rather have you than a heap of gold, even if it were very comfortable to sleep on.”_

_― His Majesty's Dragon_

*

Before Dipper had gotten on that bus to Gravity Falls, the one thing he really knew about his Grunkle Stan was that he smoked.

To be fair, the man hadn't come down to Piedmont much at all, just the once that Dipper could remember. He had shown up at the door with a cigar in his pocket, stinking so strongly of burned things that Mabel asked if his car had caught on fire on the drive over. Grandpa Shermie had dragged his brother outside with a hard look in his eyes and they had a long conversation with lots of raised voices. They didn't come back in until it was nearly dark.

Dipper didn't see Grunkle Stan smoke again for the rest of the night. He _did_ see him fidget a lot, his movements sudden and nervous. Maybe that was why Grunkle Stan kept his hands in his pockets most of the time.

And, well, Dipper wouldn't be Dipper if he didn't look into a mystery when he saw one.

"I don't understand," he heard Grandpa Shermie say through the door that night. Dipper had held his breath, knowing even then that this was something he wasn't meant to hear.

"I never understood. He was there. He _saw_ what happened to Ma, in the end. And he saw what it did everyone to lose Lee."

Dipper had crept back to his room that night and stared at his sister's softly snoring back until his eyes burned.

So when he got off the bus and finally saw his mysterious Grunkle Stan for the first time since he was a kid, Dipper couldn't help but feel disappointed. Just a bit.

He was an old guy in a weird suit, face craggy and his back stooped. And he smelled - well, he smelled carefully unobtrusive, like he had gone over every square inch of his person with a gallon of vinegar and a fine-toothed comb before coming over.

The old man grinned at them, quick and nervously.

"Uh, Dipper and Mabel, right?" He asked, "Pines?" as if there was anyone else at all at the bus stop. Maybe this town was just too boring to get any other visitors. Dipper thought, a sinking feeling in his gut.

"You're our Grunkle Stan, right?" Mabel asked, squinting up curiously. "Why are you wearing a cup on your head? Is that a 'small town tradition'? ...Are _we_ gonna get cups to wear on our heads?"

"Are there any werewolves in the forest?" Dipper demanded without missing a beat. "Or any kind of shapeshifter is fine too -"

"Ooh, or vampires! Are there vampires in the forest, Grunkle Stan? And even more importantly... are they glittery?"

Grunkle Stan stared. "Uh," He said slowly. "No?"

He seemed slightly dazed, like he had been picked up by a sudden tornado and dropped neatly on the ground a hundred miles away.

Then he grinned, wide and helpless, and there was a softness in his eyes that wasn't there before. It suited him, made him look less like a particularly shady car dealer and more like family.

",,,Huh. You two really are Pines twins, huh?"

"I mean, we _are_ twins," Dipper said uncertainly. He didn't exactly have a large pool of other Pines twins to compare him and Mabel against.

Something unreadable crossed over Grunkle Stan's face. "Yup, that's what I meant," he said breezily. "Anyways. Kids, you two ready to walk thirty minutes to the car? It's good exercise, y'know, really gets the blood pumpin' after a long bus ride up."

"...Is that how far away the free parking lot is?" Dipper asked suspiciously.

Stan beamed. "Whole lot of coincidences in the world, huh?"

*

The Mystery Shack smelled of old wood and new smoke.

They kept the windows open for as much of the day as they could, but the mosquitoes up north always made a beeline for fresh blood. The vague acrid tinge in the air was a lot better at night though, which made sense all things considered.

In hindsight, it was ridiculous that it took them nearly a week of figuring out the Shack's convoluted and probably impossible layout to come to the realization that Stan did not in fact have a bedroom.

He just looked confused when they confronted him about it, though maybe that was more because Dipper had loudly accused him of being a vampire while aiming a sack of garlic like a projectile weapon.

"What?"

"You can't lie to us, old man. Do you or do you not sleep in a coffin in your secret basement?"

Stan stared at him for a long moment before he shook his head. "...I'm not even gonna ask."

" _That is exactly what a vampire would say._ "

"Kid, wouldn't I have to sleep during the day for that?"

"Uh -"

The old man groaned. "Alright, fine. You got me. I, uh. Sleep outside, most of the time. That's why you won't see me around much at night."

Dipper and Mabel blinked in unison. " _Outside?"_ They exclaimed, their tones of disbelief nearly identical in pitch.

"Sure," Stan said with a shrug. "We get some nice warm summer evenings up here, and those bugs have learned to stay clear of me long ago.

The twins shared a worried look. They had only been in town for about a week, but that was more than enough time for them to have realized that there were some extremely dangerous parts of Gravity Falls.

And while Grunkle Stan _probably_ wasn't going to get kidnapped by several thousand gnomes to be their queen... what about everything else out there?

"Is that... safe?" Mabel said hesitantly.

Stan raised an eyebrow. "Sleepy little town like this, any reason why it wouldn't be?"

Dipper had a few hundred pages worth, in fact, Too bad none of them was gonna matter when it came to convincing his impossibly oblivious Grunkle. Good thing Dipper hadn't shown the Journal to him when he had first found it. Stan'd probably use it for kindling.

"What about -" He struggled for a moment. At this point, he knew better than to bring up even the slightest suggestion of monsters and weirdness to his Grunkle. "...Wild animals? There's gotta be a whole lot of those around here, right? Like bears? The ones with just one head, I mean."

"Hah!" Stan made a dismissive sound. "Those furballs know not to mess with me."

Dipper laughed along weakly. ...That - that was a joke, right? "But you're still -" He blinked. "Wait. What about in the winter? It snows here, right?"

The old man's expression tightened, just a bit. "Course I don't. Not in the winter."

"Then where do you -"

"Kids," Stan said heavily, "I've been doin' this for thirty years and countin'. If some spookum was gonna get me in these woods, it would have done it already."

"But _why_?"

Clearly if there was a bedroom for Dipper and Mabel, Stan could have figured out a way to stay inside. It just does not make any sense why he would choose to just... spend all night outside.

"I don't like being stuck places," the old man said, a bit too casually. "Besides. I don't sleep a whole lot anyways, so having a whole bed lying around would be a bit of a waste."

Dipper raised an eyebrow. " _You're_ claustrophobic?" He said, and couldn't help but keep the skepticism out of his voice. How many times had this guy gotten himself - and Dipper and Mabel along with him - stuck in a jail cell?

Grunkle Stan was a good liar when he had to be, he couldn't underestimate him -

"So what if I am?" Stan retorted. "All I'm saying is that it ain't right for a grown man to be climbing down people's chimneys."

Dipper stared. "That's not what - okay. _Okay._ Nevermind."

...Or maybe not.

Sometimes a Grunkle was just a Grunkle. Albeit one who wasn't allowed on most commercial aircraft.

*

But sometimes, there really was a _lot_ that was weird about Grunkle Stan.

He loved having things. Entirely unsurprisingly, he also stole a lot, as if just to prove that he could.

(There was so much stuff in the Shack, from the hoard of living wax statues who had tried to murder him, to the piles and piles of tightly sealed boxes Dipper found in a random room.

They had been neatly packed with a thick layer of dust over them but otherwise pristine, and Dipper had no idea if they had been around for three years or thirty. Just that there was an air of promise around them, as if they were waiting for the day they would finally be opened.)

There was just something a bit obsessive about Grunkle Stan, about the way he did things, about the things that he _had_ to do no matter what stood in his way. They had seen a glint of that tense fury whenever he ran into Gideon, in the way he held himself like he was holding himself back.

Because when he got mad, he got _furious_. Those were the moments when Grunkle Stan seemed much less like a grumpy old man and - well, there was just something about the way he squared his shoulders, his pose just so, that he felt so much bigger.

The weirdest thing about Grunkle Stan, however, was something else entirely. Because for all the smoke that permeated every room of the Shack in the day, Dipper has never actually saw Grunkle Stan with a cigarette.

Nor, for the matter, has he ever found a lighter or match in the Shack.

(...Okay, fine, so he had been looking. Don't ask. It was for science.)

*

Dipper was still smiling as he shut the door to Stan's memory, an unfamiliar feeling stirring to life in his chest as he thought - really actually _thought_ \- about what he had just seen of his Grunkle's honest feelings.

He had always been a bit uncomfortable with the way his Grunkle shut him down and ignored him so easily, especially when he brought up the weirdness he _knew_ was lurking here in Gravity Falls. To be honest, he had just figured that the old man didn't like him. He certainly didn't treat Mabel like that.

But seeing that wry, self-deprecatory smile on the old man's weathered face when he talked about what he had been like as a kid,,. that had stopped him dead, even before Stan had gone on to explain why he was always so tough on him.

He couldn't stop thinking about it. He recognized that expression. He saw it in the mirror all the time.

...Could he have been misjudging his Grunkle all summer long? Dipper had spent so much time taking the old man at face value that he couldn't see all the _trying_ underneath the surface.

And not just about the awkward way he always treated Dipper, like he saw something in him that worried him. He had spent so much time complaining about the smell that he hadn't really stopped to think about how ashamed Stan always looked when he saw the opened windows, the air fresheners Dipper had put in every room.

Suddenly, it made a lot of sense why he had never seen Stan smoke.

He had been trying, too. Dipper just wished he had _known._

That was the desperate thought that made him open that last door in Grunkle Stan's mind.

He hadn't wanted to check at first. He already knew everything he needed to go and save his Grunkle Stan and there really wasn't time to waste. It had been small and pretty out of the way. But there was something that drew Dipper to it.

It took him exactly four seconds to decide to pull the door open and peer inside.

He blinked.

There was a pile. A heap, really, of... a whole lot of stuff, most of which he couldn't make out. Piles and piles of books, metal pieces that sparked occasionally, busted-up cars and. Barrels of toxic waste?

And. at the top of it all, a glint of cold blue light and the suggestion of sharp corners. Something was curled up in front of it, all scales and shifting coils.

Dipper shut the door without a word.

...Grunkle Stan had really weird dreams.

There was a muffled demonic screech in the distance, followed by a loud crash.

"Coming, coming!"


	2. Chapter 2

It turned out that Grunkle Stan had known a whole lot more about the weirdness of this town than Dipper had given him credit for. That, and as impossible as it had seemed to him at first, the old man had even looked... kinda _cool_ fighting the zombies off with that baseball bat. 

There weren't a whole lot of zombies left by the time Dipper and Mabel and Stan leap into karaoke and implode a few dozen undead craniums, but there _are_ a lot of scorch marks on the grass.

Dipper got put on clean-up duty though, so at least that was one thing that hadn't changed.

"Achoo!"

He sniffed and wiped at his nose. There was ash in the air. There always was. 

Lately, Dipper had started to notice just how much of the forest around the Shack had been burned. 

He took all kinds of measurements like the Author did and even drew his own careful pictures, even if they didn't look nearly as good. Once he really started to look, he saw more and more burn marks - all over. A few of them seemed pretty new, but most of them looked like they've been there for _decades_. 

That sent a chill down his back. Whatever this mystery turned out to be, it was older than Dipper and Mabel combined. 

Then he got possessed by a demon. Stan didn't complain about having to take him to the hospital. In fact, he hadn't said a single word the whole time, just sat there quietly in the waiting chair looking small for the first time Dipper has ever seen him. Dipper had ended up sleeping for what felt like a whole week and showers still kinda hurt. 

After all that, he couldn't help but be leery of mysteries. No way was he gonna get tricked again. 

That was around when the Shack started to smell different. None of the usual smokiness in the air. Just the clean, sweet smell of ozone. 

Grunkle Stan moved differently now. He looked younger with the spright in his step and his back not stooped over all the time, so much so that Dipper felt kinda awkward calling him an old man. He smiled a whole lot more in a way that was a little bit too wide. 

He made Stancakes every morning, sometimes even without arm hair. Almost like he was practicing for something.

Then the agents came, and everything came crashing down. 

Grunkle Stan wasn't Grunkle Stan. 

Or at least, he wasn't _their_ Grunkle, or maybe he never was. Dipper didn't know and he didn't _want_ to know, even as they half-ran and half-leapt down the stairs two at a time. 

Maybe they were here in time to stop him from doing whatever he was doing that got the government after him and saying he was trying to destroy the world. Maybe they weren't.

Either way, Dipper needed to see him.

Stan stared at them like they were the end of the world, or maybe just his. He begged them to believe him. 

When Dipper hears that, he gets so angry that he tears up and pretends really badly that he just got dust in his eye. 

Why should they? _How_ could they, when he had done nothing but be untrustworthy this entire summer. 

...How _had_ they?

Suddenly Dipper just felt stupid. Those agents had looked at him and Mabel like they were just some dumb kids who got duped, but that couldn't be it. Right? Not _everything_ about Grunkle Stan was a lie. He had saved them from the zombies and watched Ducktective reruns with them until midnight and teamed-up with them against Gideon.

...They had gone into his mind and he had said there that Dipper reminded him of himself. That's gotta count for _something_ , right?

...Right?

Then he saw the still-smoking cigar clenched tightly in his Grunkle's hand. 

His face goes numb.

No wonder Dipper had never seen him smoking in the Shack. 

Why would he, when Stan had been hidden down here the whole time with his cigars and his world-ending machine, all while Mabel was getting kidnapped by gnomes and a demon was stabbing forks into Dipper's arms? 

He felt betrayed and he felt dumb for feeling betrayed instead of just regular mad. Stan had never told them he cared about them and called them gremlins half the time, but he and Mabel had still trusted him because - because - because he was _Grunkle Stan_ and he was just like that.

So yeah. He did try to shut it down himself. And when Mabel floated close and grabbed on, he _did_ beg his sister to please just press the button already!

Mabel chose to trust Grunkle Stan instead, and Dipper would always be grateful for it. 

A shriek split the air, high and pained. 

Dipper couldn't make out much of the details because it was so backlit by the eerie blue light, but something had come through the portal, all sharp edges and teeth. 

It reminded of the battle-worn strays around town sometimes that were missing an eye or an ear or even a tail. Sure, it was... what, a hundred times bigger? But there was the sharp look of defiant pride in its bright animal eyes.

Whatever it was, it was bleeding all over. Globs of old black blood dripped down onto the ground and puddled up wherever it went. 

Dipper realizes nauseously that something with a big mouth and very many teeth had taken a whole chunk out of its shoulder. A shoulder that was attached to - 

His eyes widened. A great big _wing._

Dipper let out an impossibly high squeal. The sound bounces around the laboratory, much louder than it had any right to be.

The creature cocked its head at him. 

Oh. Maybe that wasn't a great idea.

It stared Dipper down with the dark fearful eyes of an injured animal, rows and rows of sharp white teeth exposed in a snarl. Its legs were bent in preparation to pounce.

Mabel yelped when Dipper shoved her behind him. Then he threw his hands in front of his face protectively, his eyes clenched shut from instinct or probably just fear - 

"Snap out of it, Sixer!"

Grunkle Stan's voice rung in his ears, impossibly loud. There was a power in it that Dipper had never heard from the old man before.

He cracked his eyes open cautiously.

Stan was standing in front of him and Mabel, shoulders squared. He didn't seem scared at all, to Dipper's total disbelief. Instead, his face was bright with hope, with a small hesitant smile that looked strange on him. 

The creature cocked its head to regard him. Maybe Dipper's going crazy, but he thinks he sees a glint of recognition. Blood was leaking from its mouth, dark and sticky and oozing sluggishly down its long scaly neck.

"You're back," the old man says steadily, voice even gruffer than usual. "I _got_ you back. And yer gonna be okay, ya got that? You're _safe._ "

Dipper had no idea what Stan was talking about, but whatever it was must have gotten through at least a little because the creature whines, high and plaintive, and crumples like newspaper in the rain. 

There was a long moment before Dipper realized that whatever it was, it wasn't conscious anymore. 

Not dead or anything, that he could be sure of. It had looked really skinny and boney but it must have really big lungs because he can hear it breathing - straining and slow, but undeniably there. 

Stan sagged, suddenly looking very old. 

" _What is that."_ Dipper didn't even know what to say. "Grunkle Stan, what the _heck_ did you just bring through the portal?"

The old man stared at the dark huddled form of the creature, eyes unreadable. 

"Once upon a time," he said, "he wrote that journal of yours."

Dipper's eyes went wide. "W-What?" He stammered, unsure of whether it was one of Stan's bad jokes or not. The old man's expression didn't change. "But the Author's -"

But his eyes could not help but dart, instinctually, to the jagged claws and count. 

Six. 

He swallowed down a hysterical giggle. There was no way. There just couldn't - _what?_

"He's knocked out for now," Stan said, a faint wince on his face as he took in the full extent of the damage. "Geez. Looks like he needed the rest."

"But there's no way the Author of the Journal could be - I mean, he doesn't even have opposable thumbs," Dipper rambled a bit hysterically. "And it's a six-fingered _hand_ , not a six-fingered claw -"

"You can ask him when he wakes up," his Grunkle said, but it was pretty clear that he wasn't actually listening to him. 

Instead, his eyes were glued onto the - somehow, the _Author of the Journals_ \- like he was gonna disappear if Stan looked away for even just a single second. 

"...What the hell _happened_ to you, Sixer?" 

It spoke to the magnitude of their circumstances that Stan didn't even seem to notice that he had slipped up for the first time that summer.

Dipper and Mabel locked eyes and agreed. There was no bringing this up in the future, not the curse, not the crack in the old man's voice. 

Of course, this was when the FBI agents finally pulled up in front of the Mystery Shack. Dipper couldn't tell _what_ they were shouting outside, but he had a bad feeling that they really shouldn't let those guys find them.

"Um," Mabel said slowly, "Grunkle Stan? The FBI guys sound pretty mad out there."

"Oh, them?" The old man said casually. "All we gotta do is scare 'em away long enough for us to keep 'em out long-term."

"Scare them?" Dipper repeated incredulously. "How can we scare _them_?"

Stan took the cigar out of his mouth and stubbed it out on the metal table. Smoke continued to curl lazily, impossibly, from his empty mouth. 

His eyes burned.

"I've got it handled, kid."

Dipper stared. His mind didn't make the connections at first, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. 

All the smoke without a source. The burn marks all over the trees in the forest. Why they never saw Stan around after it got dark enough. 

...And then, all of a sudden, he gets it. 

He gets _everything_. 

He looked down at the new arrival with new eyes. Dipper felt a rush of awe and elation, and above all else, because he had probably read the Journal from cover to cover hundreds of times at this point... 

...a low, slow horror.

"The Author of the Journals... He's your _brother_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More is coming! As you can tell, this story focused mainly on Dipper and Stan's relationship. The next story in this series will focus mainly on Ford and Mabel's relationship... as well as Weirdmageddon and beyond. Stay tuned.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah, i know, but a wiser friend than i helped me scope this to a reasonable size.
> 
> (also yes, I will be churning out a whole bunch of AUs as i am i finishing up 'an outreached hand')


End file.
